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Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?

January 14, 2018

Let’s get real. Let’s be honest.

I’m a writer, and a blogger, and a YouTuber, and I have Twitter and Facebook, and all that lovely stuff. I’m proud of my work and what I have done. Except honestly, I’m not actually excited, and maybe even a bit bitter. If I am really being bad arsed honest, I haven’t come a long way when it comes to writing. And, maybe if given half a thought, I’d probably argue that all my accomplishments in the art of writing, are just sheer dumb luck.

Ouch. Now, I’m not asking for sympathy. Or compassion. Or, empathy. I know where I stand with my writing and with my blog, and Google, or whatever shouldn’t be on my mind. It shouldn’t be about being the smartest, or the best blog. It shouldn’t be about writing a post everyday, or not.

It’s not about being the world’s biggest YouTuber, or about having a bestselling book, or being that famous content blogger. It’s not about driving traffic or writing that blog everyone wants to read. It’s also not worrying about comments, or views, or people, or in some cases being to emotional to write, or not write a blog post. It’s about you.

Are you your own worst enemy?

I know I am. Because I always want to be the best. Only trouble is that I’m not, and I’d rather, never, not ever, will-not-be-ever-willing-if-my-life-depends-on-it ready to look at what crap I’ve done and be honest and open to making it better, or at least not without a good kick in the pants. This holds true with blogging and writing and anything in general.

Yes, I could make excuses. I’m not proud to say I am the queen at making excuses. Small kids, check. Family crisis, check. Machine I normally write on not working? check. You name it I can probably find a reason why it didn’t happen that day. Because of this, I can blame just about anything, and that’s where I found a couple of new friends: failure, and self-doubt. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand what was going on. I became my own worst enemy, and at that point, I lacked that one person who would nag me, and push me.

How did I become my own worst enemy for my own life and my writing career? It’s simple, and yet it was the hardest thing to admit to. I wasn’t a perfectionist, although that played a role in it. I wasn’t trying my hardest, although to be frank, my hardest was half-baked at best. What made me my enemy was that I wasn’t willing or able to admit that I was being lazy, irresponsible and relying on others to do what I needed to do on my own blog. One can argue it was because I wasn’t willing to be compassionate with myself. No, the trouble lay in the fact I was too forgiving with the one person I shouldn’t have been- me.

People are smart, and heck, I could say, or argue, I was compassionate and all that. I care about blogging as much as I care about writing, but I wasn’t using my logical mind. And, it proved itself when I hardly blogged for many years. I was using every single neuron to get me to not look at the problems.

I would complain about others not doing their job, or that I wasn’t getting the breaks. I could not see what it would take to make something better, even marginally, because I was fighting my own problems. I was lazy. I wasn’t wiling to do anything beyond what was needed. I didn’t grow, and I can say I ran marathons to get away from my writing and blog. Eventually it hurt to write. It hurt to blog. It was as if my own mind was against me. In fact, I can now argue the opposite, I was so used to excuses I wasn’t willing to make it better.

Yes, I set goals for writing, and they were S-M-A-R-T goals. They were never reached. I had comforting friends who would listen to my goal excuses and suggest lowering the bar. Unfortunately I was lazy and accepted that advice instead of thinking it through and Living my life of Writing. My blog slowed down with each and every excuse I made.

If you are your own worst enemy, everything that you wanted, your writing or your blog, to do hurts. It takes so much extra time. You’re far more lazy and even the wonderful carrot (whatever that carrot might be) won’t work. You’re feeling like it’s old. You being your own worst enemy will find a way to make it worse. They might not be the same excuses I used, but there is still a reason why you aren’t blogging, or writing, or doing YouTube. You can argue it’s a hobby, but if it is ten years in, it’s not a hobby, it’s a big part of your life.

Maybe it’s time to look at what you do each day. There’s a million reasons why what worked before doesn’t now. There’s a million reasons why something didn’t go your way. The deeper you look, the more painful it will become, but it’s okay to feel that pain and to feel that hurt.

It might even get you out of your own worst enemy syndrome. Just take a moment to ask if that is the reason you are not where you want to be.